Shadows in the Light
by AhiFlame
Summary: PreDMC. Jack once again finds himself the puppet of a bloodthirsty hunter who has an agenda of his own. I'm horrid at summaries...


_Disclaimer: These characters are owned by another, which I am not, nor do I hold the faintest glimmer of hope that they may one day fall into my possession, even though they fascinate me beyond all comprehension. I make no profit, savvy?_

_Author's Note: Many thanks to jackfan2 for betaing this and showing me how lax my writing skills have become. XD_

**Chapter One**

Casually, Jack sauntered down the dimly light streets of the infamous port town, occasionally glancing at the grungy paper he held in one hand. Upon arriving at a particular intersection of alleys, he paused. Making the gesture more of a scene than was necessary, he glanced down each of the alleys in turn. Strangely, the loud sounds of Tortuga nightlife were fewer here…and almost non-existent ahead.

The pirate captain shrugged to himself and turned down the alley to his right. His footsteps echoed against the brick walls surrounding him and escaped up into the clear night sky. Jack glanced up at the pale moon and shivered before dropping his gaze back to the nearing mouth of the alley. A golden grin tipped one side of his mouth as his gaze lighted on the unforgettable exterior of his destination.

Jack followed the narrow walkway out onto a deserted street and exaggerated his swaggering gait as he approached the decrepit entrance to _The Fallen Phoenix_. Before entering, he paused a moment to gaze at the exterior once more. The shutters hung limply from their mountings and the stucco was missing from several large portions of the outer walls. Holes littered the ramparts, allowing hazy, flickering candlelight to escape into the warm Caribbean night. Hanging diagonally above the entrance was a battered wooden sign whose insignia of a falling phoenix had been almost entirely warn away by the elements.

The pirate captain worked his jaw nonchalantly before he pushed the rickety door open and entered the decaying establishment. Once inside, the stench of bad ale and moldy tobacco assaulted his senses and he looked over the slim crowd, unimpressed. He tilted his chin up in disgust at a customer who lay sprawled over a table, snoring loudly into a pool of his own vomit. As Jack continued to look around the dimly lit interior, his gaze landed on a single man seated at a table in a shadowy corner.

The man met Jack's gaze and pushed a small, stained piece of paper into the center of the table. Jack grinned minutely and waved his piece of paper in return as he swaggered toward the small table. He watched a waitress rush past, toting a tray laden with mugs. As she passed, Jack snagged the handle of a mug and drew it away from its companions with an easy smile. Securing his prize with both hands, he continued toward the corner table and its occupant.

As he approached, the man rose and extended his hand. Jack took one hand from the mug and lightly waved the man's proffered hand away. Slightly confused and disappointed, the other man watched as Jack plopped himself unceremoniously into the chair opposite. "Sparrow, I presume?"

"Captain Sparrow," Jack corrected simply, refusing to look at the one he was speaking to. "If you please." His free hand moved in a vague serpentine in the musky air and his lip curled in disgust at the fumes wafting over from another table.

The other nodded. "Fair enough. Thank you for coming on such short notice."

Jack nodded. "Aye, though I'm afraid I can't stay long. You said this was important?"

"A matter of life and death."

"Ah," Jack held up an finger and looked at the other man intensely, almost suspiciously. "Words that serious hold no delight fer me, mate. I've 'ad more'n my fair share o' those situations an' I have no desire to repeat 'em, savvy?"

The other man's face darkened slightly but Jack ignored it as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet on the tabletop, taking on a relax stance that in no way mirrored the way he felt about the situation. "What's your name?" he asked slowly, quirking his head as he finally met the other's gaze.

"Johnson. Timothy Johnson." The other leaned forward, clenching his grungy hands together atop the equally filthy piece of paper. "Please Captain,"

Jack rolled his eyes and shifted his jaw. "Ye said ye had a lead fer me, Tim. Mind if I call you Tim? Timmy?"

"I'd prefer you didn't. But I can't tell you anything unless you agree to help me first."

Jack sighed dramatically and dropped his feet to the floor, the legs of his chair following with a thud. "Can't help ye mate, I've sworn off helpin' others. S'too much hassle fer nothing more oft than not." That said, Jack turned on his heel and started ambling toward the door.

The distinctive click of a pistol's hammer being thumbed back stopped him in his tracks and he turned back to face Timothy, a golden grin pasted on his face. "Y'know, that's hardly a way to entreat yer company to stay-"

"I can't let you leave Sparrow. Not yet." Timothy's eyes were a hard grayish green and his hand was unwavering as it aimed the pistol at Jack's chest.

Jack's grin grew. "So, it seems this was a matter of life and-"

"Death." Timothy finished. "Indeed, this _is_ a matter of life and death. Yours."

Jack rolled his eyes and sighed extensively as he started staggering back toward his adversary. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow…savvy?"

"Your point?"

"Didn't exactly have one that time, mate. Although if I were to fancy having one, I could always just point out that being who I am, which is a pirate of great renown and infamy, I therefore have my legend to upkeep. That's an awful lot of responsibility, wouldn't yah say. Legends tend to be immortal but I myself have a minor issue there, being as I'm human and very unfortunately _mortal_ – unless you'd believe otherwise?" Timothy shoved the gun's muzzle beneath Jack's chin and Jack grinned again. "Look, put th' pretty gun down and let's talk through this, eh?"

Timothy shook his head in refusal to lower the weapon but as Jack's demeanor remained eerily calm, his steely gaze narrowed in indecision and confusion. Jack leaned toward Timothy as much as he could with the mouth of the pistol burying itself unnervingly deep in the tender skin of his neck. His hands danced lightly, reflecting the cunning in his eyes as he spoke to his opponent. "What is it you're wantin'?"

"You know what I'm after Sparrow. Now where is it?"

Jack sighed in mock exasperation. "O' course I know what yer wantin'!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands up in the air. "I'm a bloody mind-reader, after all!" He continued waving his hands frantically and noted that Timothy's eyes remained fixed on his face, not the movements.

Jack suddenly grinned. In one quick movement, he brought one fist down on the inside of Timothy's elbow, unsettling the pistol. In that same action Jack jumped aside as the shot went wide. The pistol clattered to the floor and Jack bolted toward the door.

Timothy put his thumb and index finger in his mouth and whistled loudly, but Jack barely heard the noise as he burst out onto the street. Before he could start toward the alley from which he had come, a pair of large hands threw him off-balance and he landed hard on his left wrist. He clenched his teeth and let out a small hiss of a breath before those same large hands picked him up by the shirtfront and held him up in the air. Jack clawed at his captor's hands and thrashed as best he could, but it was to no avail.

"Nice try, Sparrow," Timothy's voice called mockingly from the tavern's doorway, "but it seems the falcon has snagged his prey." Jack eyed Johnson dangerously as he approached. "Put him down, Michael."

The brute holding Jack released him unceremoniously and the pirate landed inelegantly, almost falling again. Once he had righted himself, he quirked his head in Timothy's direction and a wry grin tipped one side of his mouth. "That's just not fair, mate. You know I'm no match fer yer trained ape." Michael swung a heavy hand at Jack, who ducked the blow a moment before it would have struck.

"Fair's never been a concern of mine." Timothy answered simply.

"So, what now?" Jack asked, breaking the heated silence that had settled over the small group.

"Now you give me what I want."

"And what, exactly, would that be? Ye still haven't told me, mate."

Timothy growled in irritation and swung at the pirate. Alert, Jack ducked the blow as it hissed overhead. Still in a crouched position, Jack struck back, his uppercut snapping Johnson's head back. With a feral grin, Jack noted the blood trickling down his opponent's face and spun, only to barely avoid the hands of the larger man.

Acting on impulse, Jack thrust a fist into his opponent's gut, causing the man to crumple breathlessly to the ground. Before he could make his next move, however, Jack found his arms useless, pinned to his sides by Timothy's arms wrapped tightly around his torso. Moving his glare from the arms restraining him to the recovering thug, a grim realization dawn on him: if he didn't find an escape, and soon, he might be regretting this little trip – well, more so than he already was. Grimacing at the mental image of his bloody, broken self, Jack renewed his struggles. Snarling silently, Jack slammed the heel of his boot on Timothy's foot and was released with a howl of pain and a cuff to his shoulder following him.

As Jack moved to take advantage of his means of escape, he was hastened on his way by Timothy's fist striking his shoulder again. Before Jack could stumble too far forward he realized that Michael had recovered and had somehow managed to snag the edge of Jack's long coat. Spinning back, Jack kneed the larger man in the groin and turned to bolt once more. Just as he felt escape was an obtainable goal, a sheath of pain engulfed his upper arm. Jack recognized the annoyingly familiar pain caused by a blade piercing flesh but he didn't allow it to slow him as he made a run for the safety of the alley. Michael growled and painfully bent to retrieve his blade. Eyes ablaze with pain and hatred, he cleaned his knife, tucked it in his boot and moved to follow the pirate…

Timothy's voice brought the brute up short. "Let him go, Michael." The giant turned to eye his boss confusedly. Grinning, Timothy nodded to the object he had cupped in his hand. "He already gave us what we want."

- - - - -

Jack stumbled along the maze of alleys that would lead him back to the rowdier part of Tortuga – and the relative safety that large crowds afforded. As the sounds of boisterous drinkers and gamblers became more deafening, Jack slowed his pace. Feeling quite a bit safer, he stopped in the shadows of an alley, leaned back against the wall and exhaled deeply. Pain radiated from his left arm – from his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips, which were tingling dangerously.

He shook his head, silently chastising himself for his foolishness. Leads in Tortuga were rarely worth investigating, and yet he had thought this one was promising. Instead, he had landed himself in a whole mess of trouble and made yet another enemy.

He really needed a drink.

Instead of planting himself at a table in the first tavern he crossed, Jack made his way back to the docks. As he mounted the gangplank of his beloved _Pearl_, he called for the night watch to start rounding up the crew from the taverns – they were setting out on the morning tide.

Leaving the men who were still relatively (a term he used loosely when describing the sobriety of his crew on nights like this) sober to carry out his orders, he paced into his cabin and closed the door behind him. He tossed his coat and vest aside and tugged his shirt off as he crossed the room, mindful of his bad arm. Jack kneeled before the chest at the foot of his bed and began pawing through its contents.

He pulled out some lengths of cloth and a bottle of rum before closing the chest and settling on his cot. Uncorking the bottle, he raised his arm and glared at the cut.

"Well…that certainly could have gone worse," he muttered as he eyed the oozing gash. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he poured some of the amber fluid over the wound and stifled a yelp as the liquid seeped into the lesion and sent fire running up and down his arm. Clumsily, he took a long draught from the bottle before he set it aside and pawed around on the cot beside him for the strips of fabric.

Reaching across himself awkwardly, he wound the cloth around his upper arm and tied a knot using his right hand and his teeth. With a sigh he kicked his boots off, grabbed the bottle from where he had placed it, and took another long swig. The sting from the rum on his arm had already dissipated into a constant, annoying throbbing, but his wrist and shoulder were another story. Luckily for him, however, the rum was already serving one of its many uses and the pain was fading steadily beneath the liquor-induced numbness.

After another long swig, he grabbed a few more strips of fabric and bound his left wrist in the semblance of a splint, noting as he worked that the limb was slightly swollen and very tender to the touch. He again employed the assistance of his teeth in tying a knot with the ends of the strips and pulled it as tight as he dared.

Whether it was another effect of the rum or a result of the battering his body had taken, Jack felt exhausted. Setting the bottle on his bedside table, he laid back against the pillows and dragged his feet up onto the bed. Absently, he rubbed tenderly at his bruised shoulder and slowly allowed his eyes to drift shut.

_Author's Note: Well, that's it for chapter one. So what d'you think? Good? Bad? Alright? Please let me know so my muse decides to let me write more…please?_


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